How to Write a Webinar Agenda

Webinars are one of the most popular marketing channels. Many organizations — from small and midsize to enterprise — use webinars to promote thought leadership, enable sales teams, attract new prospects, and serve existing customers.

But executing engaging webinars takes the right combination of planning, people, and process.

And that all starts with a webinar agenda.

What is a Webinar Agenda?

But what does a good webinar agenda look like? We’ve put together this guide, including examples, to show you.

A webinar agenda is a structured outline of a webinar presentation. It should order everything that will happen in your webinar, including the topics covered, audience activities, and any guest speakers. 

Webinar agendas are essential for two main reasons:

1. 1. They keep you on track, ensuring your webinar runs smoothly from start to finish and doesn’t go over time.
   2. They help set audience expectations for the webinar. This helps attendees plan which questions they want to ask and participate more actively.

Webinar Agendas: Wing ’em … or Plan ’em?

Always plan your webinars. Agendas are a cheat sheet your presenters can use to prepare and stay on track. Your attendees will thank you. Yes, they will notice the difference!

Creating an effective webinar agenda ensures your experiences run smoothly and that you don’t miss valuable engagement opportunities. Here are some tips for starting:

Define Your Objectives:
Define your webinar goals, whether it’s lead generation, brand awareness, or sales enablement. Defining your objectives will help you narrow the focus of your webinar so it’s impactful.

1. 1. Create Sections: Allocate specific sections for introductions, key topics, and Q&A sessions to maintain a seamless flow. Sectionalizing is key to keeping webinars on time and means attendees who join late can understand what’s going on.
   2. Engage Your Audience: Include polls, breakout rooms, or interactive tools to keep attendees active and interested. Incorporating opportunities for attendee participation also provides valuable first-party engagement data you can learn from for future webinars.
   3. Incorporate Multimedia: Use videos, slides, or case studies to enrich your content. Much like interactive activities, multimedia content helps make your webinar more engaging and reinforces your message.
   4. Plan Follow-Ups: Detail post-webinar CTAs, such as downloading resources or attending related events. A well-planned follow-up strategy can maximize the impact of your webinar and turn a single session into lasting customer relationships.

All of these facets should impact your agenda. Think them through with your team. Read on to learn some more tips on how to write a webinar agenda.

Step 1: Setting Up Your Webinar Agenda



The beginning of your webinar is your chance to set the tone of your event and capture audience interest. It should include an introduction with a housekeeping component. Tell audiences how and where they can engage and interact with the experience.

If there’s a chat feature, show them where it is. Call out additional content offers or opportunities to register for upcoming events.

Ideally, your webinar includes many interactive elements and engagement tools. Providing attendees with a quick overview will encourage them to engage with your event and get them excited about what they’re about to experience.

Step 2: Driving Engagement with Interactive Webinars



Now that we talked about how to introduce the features and functionalities that make your webinar engaging and fun, let’s talk about exactly what kind of interactive elements you can include to keep audiences engaged throughout the entire experience.

At ON24, we like to start webinars with a poll. This is a great way to engage audiences right off the bat and to get immediate feedback on who is filling your digital seats. The more you know about your audience’s digital body language, the better.

Running a webinar on how to create a marketing campaign or share research? Start the experience with a poll about audience pain points or points of confusion.

Knowing how familiar your audiences are with the concepts you’re about to present will help you tailor your presentation to their unique needs.

Maybe you have a room full of novices and decide to go a little more in-depth than you initially planned. Consider allowing questions throughout the webinar rather than only during the Q&A. Alternatively, if your audience is advanced, you can present more complex ideas.

Take questions throughout the event. Many presenters set aside time for questions and answers at the end of the webinar. Remind attendees to ask questions throughout your presentation to ensure a seamless transition to Q&A.

Allowing audiences to ask questions during the presentation keeps them engaged. It also ensures that you don’t lose valuable opportunities to collect first-party data insights that sales teams can use to start conversations.

Speaking of sales, find opportunities to integrate them into the experience. If someone asks a question you don’t have time to answer, empower your sales teams to follow up.

Integrate a sales rep into live chats, have them answer sales-related questions in the Q&A, and enable audience members to meet with sales after the webinar in a live 1:1 virtual breakout session.

Step 3: Maintain the Right Webinar Pace



Have you ever attended a webinar where the presenter blasts through a thousand slides over an hour? Or worse, have you ever presented a webinar and just finished your last slide only to realize you used only half your allotted time?

It happens to the best of us.

That’s why it’s crucial to think about the pacing of your webinar before the actual live date. Know your cadence — some presenters prefer to go through 20 slides an hour, and some can comfortably get through 100.

When building your presentation, create decks that match your presenter’s cadence so you don’t rush your audience or leave them hanging.

The pace at which you cover your talking points is essential, but ensuring they fit the overall theme of your event is imperative.

It sounds simple enough, but you’d be surprised how easy it is to get sidetracked or try to cover too much at once. Don’t try to boil the ocean.

And remember… don’t pitch until it’s time to pitch. If you deliver a thought leadership webinar, save the pitch for the end.

Pro Tip from ON24 Chief Webinerd, Mark Bornstein: Every webinar should have a single narrative.  When building a webinar deck, break up your content into acts with different chapters, sessions, and speakers to keep it organized and on topic.

Make sure your audience always knows where they are in the story, but keep their eye on the bigger picture as it unfolds.

Step 4: Preparing Presenters with a Webinar Agenda



Arguably, the most essential part of your webinar is your presenter. The energy your presenter brings to the webinar can transform the event from a boring presentation into a fun and lively experience.

And why would you want to deliver anything less than that? Think about it. When someone attends your webinar, they are giving you an hour of their time and attention. Make it count.

This is your chance to establish trust and build relationships that go beyond static content downloads.

When a prospect fills out a form on your website, you get a name, an email address, and maybe a high-level understanding of where they work or what they do.

Step 5: Wrapping Up Your Webinar with Next Steps



All good things must come to an end. But that doesn’t mean your audiences have to tune you out completely. Give audiences the chance to keep the content journey going with content offers, upcoming event invitations, networking opportunities, or sales conversations.

Making a purchase decision is a journey as much as it is a destination, and the worst thing we can do is fail to help our prospects take the next step.

Use these ideas and encourage prospects to continue the journey from within your webinar event:

• • Include content offers to keep audiences engaged with your brand and keep them on the path to revenue.
  • Invite them to another upcoming webinar or event.
  • Include links to relevant content offers or send them to an on-demand portal.

PRO TIP: Making webinars available on demand is a great way to increase your attendance. Schedules get tight, and not everyone is always available to attend the live date, no matter how hard they try. Give them a chance to tune in when they can, and — take it from us — the proof is in the pipeline.

By making its webinars available on demand, Align Technology increased webinar attendance by 54%. And the best part is, you can still engage audiences with on-demand experiences just as you would with a live webinar.

How?

With CTAs, Engagement, and Conversion Tools (including book-a-demo or start a free trial), relevant content offers attendees can navigate to directly from your webinar console or even polls.

You can also deliver your live webinar directly in Content Hub to make it easy for audiences to tune in.

Basic Webinar Agenda Templates

To help you get a better idea of how to write a webinar agenda, we’ve put together some example outlines. You can use one of these webinar agenda templates as a guide to structure your own webinar, or simply use them for inspiration. 

Template 1: Basic Webinar Agenda

Welcome and Introduction (5 minutes):
Overview of the webinar and speakers.

Topic 1 (15 minutes):
Key points and supporting data.

Audience Interaction (1-2 minutes):
Poll or Q&A.

Topic 2 (15 minutes):
Examples and case studies.

Closing & CTA (5 minutes):
Summary, feedback request, and next steps.

Template 2: Advanced Webinar Agenda

Welcome and Introduction (5 minutes):
Overview of the webinar, speakers, and housekeeping.

Topic 1 Part 1 (10 minutes):
Topic overview and key points.

Audience Interaction (1-2 minutes):
Quiz or poll.

Topic 1 Part 2 (15 minutes):
Deeper dive with supporting multimedia content. 

Audience Interaction (5 minutes):
Breakout room or chat discussion.

Topic 2 (10 minutes):
Practical applications and expert insights.

Audience Interaction (15 minutes)
Q&A session.

Closing & CTA (5 minutes):
Summarize key learnings, share further resources, and invite direct contact.

Template 3: Product Demonstration Webinar Agenda

Welcome & Introduction (5 minutes):
The host introduces themselves and housekeeping.

Product Overview (15 minutes):
Key features & benefits.

Audience Interaction (1-2 minutes):
Poll or survey to find out the most common pain points.

Product Demo (15 minutes):
Demonstrate how to use the product and highlight the top features.

Audience Interaction (10 minutes):
Q&A session, including further demonstrations. 

Closing & CTA (5 minutes):
Share case studies and other downloadable resources. Offer promotional codes or incentives.

How Long Should I Spend Planning My Webinar?

Is it possible to deliver a webinar overnight? Of course! Sometimes you have to respond to events in real time, and webinars can be a great way to get that message out to a large, distributed audience. But unless you’re reacting to an emergency, we wouldn’t recommend rushing your webinars.

It takes time to plan and execute a successful marketing campaign, and webinars are no exception. At ON24, we typically allow about eight weeks to take a webinar from concept to execution. That gives us plenty of time to brainstorm creative webinar content ideas, connect with internal and external subject matter experts, and execute our webinar promotional plan.

How do you plan a webinar? If so, then you’ve come to the right place. At ON24, we’ve compiled a webinar planning checklist based on our suggested eight-week plan.

Let’s walk through those eight weeks:

Week 1: Planning

What are the goals for your webinar? What will the topic be? Do you know who is on your webinar action team, and what their responsibilities are? By outlining these details early in the process, you will avoid frustration and confusion closer to the live webinar, when the stakes are much higher.

If you have a long-running webinar series or an established webinar program with a specialist team, you may have most of these details locked down already. Even so, it’s worth taking a few minutes to check in with your webinar team to make sure everyone’s still on the same page.

Week 2: Messaging

You’ve already nailed down the topic of your webinar. Now it’s time to hammer out the fine details – a webinar planning checklist that lists all the critical parts is a good idea, so you can stay on top of what you need to do. Develop a compelling webinar title. Sketch out the key benefits that will attract attendees to your event. Draft the webinar abstract. Pick the creative direction for the imagery you’ll be using in your landing page, promotional assets, and webinar console.

Again, if you have an established webinar series, you may already have this content. In that case, use this time to evaluate the things you’ve used in the past and see if there’s an opportunity to improve.

Week 3: Marketing deliverables

Before you do anything else, ensure the key marketing assets are in place. For most webinars, that includes the registration page, promotional emails, confirmation emails, display and banner ads, and a design for the webinar console.

Ideally, all these pieces should share a consistent look and feel, including the messaging you developed the week before, so people have a consistent, engaging experience with your webinar promotions.

Week 4: Infrastructure setup

Start building out your webinar console. If you’re planning to have a video presenter (and you should!), test your studio equipment or webcam setup. Make sure you’re using the correct tracking codes in all your marketing materials. Double-check your landing page and email flow. Test, test, and test again so there are no surprises on the big day.

Week 5: Launching external promotions

It’s time to launch that carefully orchestrated promotional plan. Your landing page should be live. Your display ads should be serving. Your first email should go out to give people plenty of time to put your event on their calendars.

This is the week your webinar promotions start, but it’s not the only week to think about webinar promotions. Until the webinar goes live, you’ll want to monitor and refine your promotional plan to ensure you achieve the highest possible registration and conversion rates.

Week 6: First dry run

Even if your presentation slides aren’t final, you should still have enough pieces in place to do a “dress rehearsal” for your webinar. Run through the whole webinar, beginning to end. If possible, run your dry run in the same location and with the same equipment you’ll use for the live webinar. This will give you a chance to catch any technical issues or correct any flow problems while the stakes are low.

Week 7: Internal promotion

Turn your coworkers into an army of advocates for your event. Make sure they all have the landing page link and the emails to share with their contacts. Provide them with tweets to promote the webinar on their social channels. Encourage them to sign up and attend the webinar themselves.

Week 8: The big day

Get plenty of sleep and show up relaxed and ready to go. Get everyone in place at least 30 minutes before the event so you can do a final run-through and equipment test. If you’re presenting, keep a glass of water on hand and take a sip as needed. If you’re helping behind the scenes, ensure your team has an agreement on how to route attendee questions, run push polls, monitor chats, and more.

Most importantly, be yourself and have fun! Every webinar is an amazing opportunity to connect with people who really care about what you have to say. Just keep that in mind, and your event is sure to be a success.

Tips for Organizing Your Webinar Marketing Program

Ask yourself where your audience is in the buying cycle. If they’re top of funnel, your webinar should focus on thought leadership and lead generation. For a mid-funnel audience, focus on positioning and influence. The bottom of the funnel is all about demonstrating and closing. Just know what you want your webinar to achieve before you hit the broadcast button.

Pick a tool to help you plan your webinar.

Before we dive into the nitty-gritty of what it takes to launch a truly successful webinar, it’s essential to consider the technical aspect of executing your program and evaluate the different tools at your disposal.

G2.com has collected hundreds of genuine user reviews to help you choose a variety of webinar software that you can choose from to help you execute the best virtual seminar possible.

Make sure the software you’re looking for has the capabilities and features you need to reach the audience you expect. Is this going to be an internal program for a few dozen employees or will it be a large seminar for (hopefully) thousands of viewers hanging onto your every word? What sort of budget considerations do you have? Ensuring you have the appropriate software, such as backup software that saves your progress in case of an accident, can go a long way toward creating a seamless, enjoyable experience for everyone involved.

Now, let’s dive into making that plan.

Build a Dream Team

Brainstorming works better with multiple brains. The size of your team will vary depending on the scale of your webinar. At a minimum, you’ll want to assign three key roles: a producer to ensure the technical components run smoothly, a promoter to spread the word across all relevant channels, and a presenter to build the presentation deck and deliver the webinar.

Consider your audience

One of the most important aspects of crafting a successful plan for your marketing webinar is crafting an audience persona around which you can organize your content.

Luckily, you don’t need special training or the knowledge of an industry insider to do this. Creating an audience persona is the process of putting yourself in your potential viewers’ shoes and understanding what might motivate them to watch your webinar. An easy way to do this is to ask yourself what problems your audience might be facing and what you can offer in your content to help them solve them. Of course, you can’t fix it for them, but you can provide relevant insights to spur their thinking and problem-solving. Doing this will ensure your webinar is relevant and valuable, creating a positive overall experience for you and your brand.

Spread the word

You can botch your marketing webinar before the host even starts speaking. After all, if nobody watches it, you might not have put it on in the first place.

It might seem obvious at first, but the importance of a strong social media campaign for every webinar you host cannot be overstated. Of course, there’s more to this than simply sending a bunch of tweets the day before. According to Sprout Social, platforms such as Twitter experience varying levels of audience engagement by day of the week and time of day. For example, some of the best times to promote your upcoming webinar are early Wednesday or Friday, or midday on Tuesday.

Just as you plan the webinar content, you also need to tailor your posts’ messaging to the audience you’re targeting. Having a clear goal for who you want to reach and tailoring your messages accordingly will be much more effective than launching generic copy into the void. Your marketing automation tool can help you target the right audience and tailor messaging while measuring the success of promotional campaigns.

You can use a landing page builder to create a content hub for all webinar information. Include information such as the time, topic covered, any special guests, and more. Think of all the information you’d need to know before committing to going, and provide it for your audience.

Format your program

Now that you know who your audience is and, hopefully, have started driving engagement, the next step is to package that information in a way that’s entertaining and effective at communicating it. After all, it won’t matter how well thought-out your audience persona is if the actual webinar is poorly executed.

Below are some standard webinar formats:

The seminar

This is the classic webinar style: a single speaker presents all information, runs the show, and answers audience questions. This webinar format is by far the easiest to host. It’s also the most common and may lack the perspective and variety of the other forms.

The interview

An interview-style webinar is a format in which two people discuss, typically an authority and an interviewer who serves as a stand-in for the audience. It’s usually considered to be more engaging than a seminar-style webinar; however, it can be difficult to coordinate, particularly if you plan on sourcing outside help.

The panel discussion

This last form of webinar features an even more conversational tone than either the seminar or interview; instead of being presented with information by experts, the audience is instead invited into a conversation between equals about the topics at hand. Despite this benefit, panels are by far the hardest to execute, as they require a moderator to keep the conversation on track and can often result in some voices being drowned out.

Put your best foot forward

Once you’ve selected a tool, identified the appropriate audience, built a promotional campaign, and chosen a format, you’re ready for your expertise to shine through and engage your audience. Webinars can be powerful tools for brand building and establishing your team’s expertise, so it’s essential to take your time to ensure you present the best possible representation.

Create killer content

Now the fun part begins because it’s time to brainstorm webinar topics and content ideas. Start by focusing on your audience’s pain points and business challenges. Then review your existing content to identify what’s already performing well. Monitor industry trends, hot topics, the latest innovations, and new regulations. Get insights directly from your audience by conducting pre- and post-webinar surveys, live chats, webinar Q&A, and social listening.

Run Your Webinar

Alright, it’s time to run your webinar! Gather your content and team, and craft a few slides to present. Be sure to run through your presentation once or twice to familiarize yourself with the webinar flow and make any necessary adjustments. Relax and remember to have fun.